A recurring idea courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of largely uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
